N.B. global frame of reference -
Music, Literature, the Visual Arts, Landscape, Current Affairs.
A special emphasis on Dorset and Greece, plus other countries where I've lived and worked (and others which I visit regularly or know well) - Jim.

"Charlotte Smith hosts a panel of expert guests to discuss what a British Agricultural Policy might look like post-Brexit: They are Neil Parish MP, Chair of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee; Caroline Drummond, Chief Executive of Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF); and Guy Smith, Vice Chair of the National Farmers Union".

One of the sector's main concerns seems to be continued access to seasonal migrant labour, in order to stay competitive, and to undertake some of the jobs the British don't want to do - working in abattoirs, animal TB testing, poultry plucking and processing, fresh fruit and vegetable picking and harvesting.

If seasonal migrant labour is not available, farming may be driven abroad, one speaker warns; strawberries could be sourced from a more competitive California (with access to seasonal migrant labour) rather than from Britain.

The farming industry seems to favour a 'soft' Brexit. I'm not a farmer or food producer (I did once have a student vacation job as a strawberry picker in Somerset, but made almost no pocket-money), and seldom think about the detailed policy problems; I suppose we all want ready access to affordable food. As a casual listener to the debate, I wish the reasons for supporting a soft Brexit and discussions around EU membership and Single Market dilemmas were more edifying than access to seasonal migrant labour to staff the abattoirs.Update 4 January 2017Migrant farm workers may stay after Brexit but red tape goes - BBC News - The environment secretary says she is "absolutely committed" to ensuring that British farmers have access to migrant workers after Brexit.

"An authoritarian streak?...Within the country, there are fears that a culture of
political interference in the public sector could be deepening, instead of
improving…Now there are fears that Greece could become another front
in the EU’s quest to beat back threats to core principles of good governance
and respect for independent institutions".

A Goethe-Institut (Thessaloniki) exhibition which explores, through art, lived experience and history, the discordant, separate, divided memories of a critical and divisive decade, and eventual reconciliation...

"It took Thessaloniki seven decades to restore its memories, recognize its mistakes, and, above all, to apologize for a piece of its history that was silently buried under the foundations of its university. Three years ago, the city’s mayor, Yiannis Boutaris, erected a monument in a corner of the campus as a reminder that this was the spot where, for 500 years, the city’s once-large community of Sephardic Jews honored their dead. Then, the mayor spoke of the undue delay in breaking the silence and beginning to talk about the dark moments of the city’s history".

"The total area of ​​the property in Kassiopi Corfu amounts to 490,000 square meters. and 438,228.89 sqm is being transferred, of which more than 320,000 square meters. will remain accessible to the public; regarding the rest of the land, the investor will have the right to build on about 35,000 square meters. for mild (moderate) touristic development".

"Regardless of your views on Poundbury - very much an integral part of Dorchester and not a village near Dorchester as many in the media think - Queen Mother Square is an imposing addition to the development and really comes into its own when lit up after dark".

"The Sea lost nothing of the swallowing identity of its great outer mass of waters in the emphatic, individual character of each particular wave. Each wave, as it rolled in upon the high-pebbled beach, was an epitome of the whole body of the sea, and carried with it all the vast mysterious quality of the earth's ancient antagonist", John Cowper Powys.

Wednesday, 28 December 2016

Parliamentary amendment paving way for rehirings , eKathimerini - "Tens of thousands of contract workers at municipalities around the country, whose jobs were hanging in the balance, could be hired on a permanent basis according to an amendment included in a zoning bill that was passed in Parliament before the Christmas recess".

DAVID RENNIE: "What I would say to those voters is if you vote for those policies that sound like they will be kind of emotionally satisfying, that sound like they punish your enemies, you can do that. You can vote for that. That's your democratic right. But understand that that could come with costs. Understand that perhaps some of these demagogic leaders in some countries are promising you things that A, they can't deliver and B, will have costs that you don't yet understand. Because, you know, you can thump the table. You can be selfish. You can be much more aggressive. You can raise barriers, build walls, but there are costs behind those actions".

DAVID GREENE: "And what's the number one cost you would bring up if you were having a conversation with a voter like that?"

DAVID RENNIE: "Your job. If - I mean, the number one thing that all those voters bring up with all of us reporters who cover politics is good jobs and a better future for their kids. And that's exactly what I think is imperiled by this false promise of closure and closed borders and walls".

A good article by Clare Foges in The Times today (register to read) -
'I wonder whether what is “interesting” in our times might be driven in part by a deep desire for more interest in life. In short, by boredom...Bertrand Russell thought "at least half the sins of mankind" are caused by the fear of boredom...Our boredom thresholds have crashed...Yes, elections are meant to be about the sober business of weighing up competing arguments, but let's admit that some small part of us is exhilarated when the normal order is smashed to pieces'.

"Electricity theft is costing Greece’s dominant power utility Public Power Corporation (PPC) about 170 million euros in lost income each year, the company said on Friday, citing estimates by the Greek energy regulator".

"Novelist Panos Karnezis reflects on why artists and writers were taken by surprise by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union".

The London-based Greek novelist asks himself whether 'self-important, self-referential' artists and politicians (especially those living in London) may be out of touch with the 'real world', and may need to hone their skills of observation and empathy. Their fingers weren't 'on the pulse'. A bit smug and insular, in short?

Thursday, 22 December 2016

I once performed a version of this song at a British Embassy Christmas Party. Somewhere I have an out-take of the song which I recorded at the Sun Studio, Memphis. Listening to it again, it's no wonder that it remained "in the can". Maybe I should stick to "Blue Christmas" for a party piece. Or maybe not. Leave them to the King.

Dudley Brooks on piano! (Photo credit unknown: advice?)

High praise for guitarists James Burton and Scotty Moore on other recordings mentioned.

"A Turkish cargo ship ran aground on a tiny rocky island in the Aegean Sea in December 1995. But a dispute between Turkey and Greece over who owned the island sovereignty almost brought the two nations to war. Agreement still hasn't been reached over the territory called Kardak by the Turks and Imia by the Greeks. Cagil Kasapoglu spoke to the former Turkish diplomat Onur Oymen and the former Greek foreign minister, Theodoros Pangalos, about the crisis".

"The solution to the world’s water scarcity problem could lie in the tiny, remote island of Bermuda. The island has battled water saving problems since its colonisation as it has no natural water resources – and therefore no natural pure water. It relies on one source alone – rain water. That limited availability has created a nation of pioneering inventors who produced the Bermudian Roof. It catches every drop of rain, purifies it and stores it for daily use. As each Bermudian citizen is in charge of their own water supply – they have an ingrained sense of water conservation. Could other countries learn from their stringent attitude towards water – or could the Bermudian roof be installed across the world?"

"The Caribbean island of Bermuda has no fresh-water springs, rivers or lakes. So how did humans ever settle there? The secret is in the design of their houses, and particularly the white stepped roof which is still in use 400 years after it was first introduced"

"Love life! Love every moment of life
that you experiencewithout
pain."Llewelyn
Powys (on his deathbed)

"No human being should
ever wake without looking at the sun with grateful recognition of the liberty
of another day; nor give himself to sleep without casting his mind, like a
merlin, into the gulfs between the furthest stars." "Natural Happiness", Llewelyn
Powys.

Monday, 19 December 2016

"Falling in love with someone from a different country, culture or religion can bring a lifetime of joyous adventure — but it is rarely plain sailing"

"I never liked the fish. I didn’t understand why we had to have pickled herrings on Christmas Eve, or why we had straw decorations on our Christmas tree instead of nice shiny baubles, and white lights instead of coloured ones. I certainly didn’t understand why, 12 days before Christmas, I had to wear a white nightie and a crown of battery-operated candles and carry a tray of ginger biscuits and sing a song. My mother just said this was what you did in Sweden and that she wanted us to know what Christmas should be like".

"The city’s overreliance on diesel-powered vehicles has given it a dubious distinction: a global leader in nitrogen dioxide, a particularly noxious pollutant that shortens the lives of thousands of Londoners a year".

"The city’s overreliance on diesel-powered vehicles has given it a dubious distinction: a global leader in nitrogen dioxide, a particularly noxious pollutant that shortens the lives of thousands of Londoners a year".

"Over the past month, thick smog has blanketed northern and central China. In 2014 the government declared “war on pollution” and smog became a bit lighter. But a rebound in heavy industry since last spring, tracking a property-market rally, brought it back. The government is now trying to cool the property market—while hoping to avert a more serious slowdown. The war against pollution will only go so far".

"The University of Bristol has conducted a survey which shows that a large percent of the Greek companies in Bulgaria are actually nothing more than ghost companies created to evade taxes. The survey showed that of the 14,000 Greek-owned companies in Bulgaria, only 3,000, or three out of four of them are actually active companies".

“When I heard it, it just shot straight through to my brain. And I realised, suddenly, that there was more to life than what I’d been living. I was then in pursuit of something and there’d been a vision laid out before me. You were dealing with the pure thrust, the pure energy of the music itself. I was so very young but it still hit me like a thunderbolt...It sounds great to this day. We still base our snare drum sound, one of the ultimate snare drum sounds, on Hound Dog.”

Friday, 16 December 2016

"Paul Rose explores the Jurassic Coast, taking a walk through some two hundred million years of the earth's history. He uncovers prehistoric treasures in Charmouth and greets hatching signets at Abbotsbury Swannery".

"There is also a reference to apple cake in a poem, Father Come Home (1834), by the Dorset dialect poet, William Barnes, and I suspect that apple cakes have been made in Dorset for a very long time".

"Your supper's nearly ready. I've a-got
Some teaties here a-doen in the pot;
I wish wi' all my heart I had some meat.
I got a little ceake too, here, a-beaken o'n
Upon the vier. 'Tis done by this time though
He's nice an' moist; vor when I were-a meakin o'n
I stuck some bits ov apple in the dough".

ECLOGUE: FATHER COME HWOME JOHN, WIFE, AN' CHILDCHILDO mother, mother! be the teäties done?Here's father now a-comèn down the track.He's got his nitch o' wood upon his back,An' such a speäker in en! I'll be bound,He's long enough to reach vrom groundUp to the top ov ouer tun;'Tis jist the very thing vor Jack an' ITo goo a-colepecksèn wi', by an' by.WIFEThe teäties must be ready pretty nigh;Do teäke woone up upon the fork an' try.The ceäke upon the vier, too, 's a-burnèn,I be afeärd: do run an' zee, an' turn en.JOHNWell, mother! here I be woonce mwore, at hwome.WIFEAh! I be very glad you be a-come.You be a-tired an' cwold enough, I s'pose;Zit down an' rest your bwones, an' warm your nose.JOHNWhy I be nippy: what is there to eat?WIFEYour supper's nearly ready. I've a-gotSome teäties here a-doèn in the pot;I wish wi' all my heart I had some meat.I got a little ceäke too, here, a-beäkèn o'nUpon the vier. 'Tis done by this time though.He's nice an' moist; vor when I wer a-meäkèn o'nI stuck some bits ov apple in the dough.CHILDWell, father; what d'ye think? The pig got outThis mornèn; an' avore we zeed or heärd en,He run about, an' got out into geärden,An' routed up the groun' zoo wi' his snout!JOHNNow only think o' that! You must contriveTo keep en in, or else he'll never thrive.CHILDAn' father, what d'ye think? I voun' to-dayThe nest where thik wold hen ov our's do lay:'Twer out in orcha'd hedge, an' had vive aggs.WIFELo'k there: how wet you got your veet an' lags!How did ye get in such a pickle, Jahn?JOHNI broke my hoss, an' been a-fwo'ced to stan'All's day in mud an' water vor to dig,An' meäde myzelf so wetshod as a pig.CHILDFather, teäke off your shoes, then come, and IWill bring your wold woones vor ye, nice an' dry.WIFEAn' have ye got much hedgen mwore to do?JOHNEnough to last vor dree weeks mwore or zoo.WIFEAn' when y'ave done the job you be about,D'ye think you'll have another vound ye out?JOHNO ees, there'll be some mwore: vor after that,I got a job o' trenchèn to goo at;An' then zome trees to shroud, an' wood to vell,—Zoo I do hope to rub on pretty wellTill zummer time; an' then I be to cutThe wood an' do the trenchèn by the tut.CHILDAn' nex' week, father, I'm a-gwaïn to gooA-pickèn stwones, d'ye know, vor Farmer True.WIFEAn' little Jack, you know, 's a-gwaïn to eärnA penny too, a-keepèn birds off corn.JOHNO brave! What wages do 'e meän to gi'e?WIFEShe dreppence vor a day, an' twopence he.JOHNWell, Polly; thou must work a little sprackerWhen thou bist out, or else thou wu'ten pickA dungpot lwoad o' stwones up very quick.CHILDOh! yes I shall. But Jack do want a clacker:An' father, wull ye teäke an' cutA stick or two to meäke his hut?JOHNYou wench! why you be always up a-baggèn.I be too tired now to-night, I'm sure,To zet a-doèn any mwore:Zoo I shall goo up out o' the waÿ o' the waggon.

"The Government has confirmed its intention to make UK residential property held indirectly by non-doms through an offshore structure chargeable to UK Inheritance Tax (IHT). As planned, this will begin on 6 April 2017".

Swedish Six-Hour Workday Trial Runs Into Trouble: Too Expensive, Bloomberg - "Swedes looking forward to a six-hour workday just got some bad news: the costs outweigh the benefits. That’s according to the preliminary results of a two-year experiment carried out in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, the home of Volvo. To reduce the 8-hour days at the 68-nurse Svartedalen old people’s home, the city had to hire 17 extra staff at a cost of 12 million kronor ($2.2 million)".

"The IMF is being criticized for demanding more fiscal austerity, in particular for making this a condition for urgently needed debt relief. This is not true, and clarifications are in order".

"This does not mean that there is no further work for Greece to do on the fiscal side. Greece still needs to reform the structure of its taxes and spending—how the government raises its money and what it spends it on—because both are highly unfriendly to growth and equity. But the point of the measures we are calling for is not to generate more austerity and a higher primary surplus. To the contrary, the gains from these reforms should be used fully to increase spending or cut taxes to support growth. In our view, reforms like those we propose are indispensable: we do not believe that Greece can come close to sustaining even a modest primary surplus and realize its ambitious long-term growth target without a radical restructuring of the public sector. This should not—and cannot—happen overnight, but it is critical that a plan to create a more growth-friendly and equitable structure of the public finances over the medium term is adopted now.

Why is the currently agreed budget unfriendly to growth? While Greece has undertaken a huge fiscal adjustment, it has increasingly done so without addressing two key problems—an income tax regime that exempts more than half of households from any obligation (the average for the rest of the Euro Zone is 8 percent) and an extremely generous pension system that costs the budget nearly 11 percent of GDP annually (versus the average for the rest of the Euro Zone of 2¼ percent of GDP). Instead of tackling these difficult problems, Greece has resorted to deep cuts in investment and so-called discretionary spending. It has done so to such an extent that decaying infrastructure is hampering growth and the delivery of basic public services such as transportation and health care is being compromised".

"A number or eurozone member-states raised objections on Tuesday to the coalition’s decision to award pensioners a 617-million-euro Christmas bonus and to freeze the value-added tax rise on some Aegean islands. Austria, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia and Finland were among those that complained, while the German representative went as far as suggesting that the short-term debt relief measures agreed at the Eurogroup in early December should only be implemented after Greece and its lenders complete the second review".

"President of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem said the country's creditors had agreed to go ahead with planned short-term debt relief measures. It came after he received a letter from the Greek finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, in which he said Greece would honour its bailout commitments".